In my two line biography on Facebook, I wrote – ” Easily Obsessed, Easily bored”, and it struck how that one line totally explains about me. So here Iam, back to the blog I left – bored. And the best thing is, I can take it from where I left. Its october again, the sunray that tries to peep into my bedroom through the window is no more denied but welcomed for its warmth. The strange sounds which the winds make, the beautiful orange-purple clouds during sunset and the fog on the car window – all welcomed.

It’s been a year since I blogged, but the recession was for good. When ideas become stale and when everything seems too cliched and boring. Its time to stop abusing your interest. But its good to be back to – like a blogger friend wrote – writing posts are like leaving trail of oneself, where one can trace back to a person who he were. And so am I here, starting the trail again not quite from where I left, but to remember that gap as a beautiful stop in the journey.

Seven Thirty in the morning
Cool breeze with scents of adjacent Jasmines
Children playing with dogs
Morning News paper
Hot Bagel and Hazelnut coffee

What else is Paradise?

Thought on a October morning, Einstein Bros Bagels outdoor seating, Chandler, AZ

Last year on the Fool’s Day, it said we could change our timestamps on the e-mail to make it look like it was sent in the past. This could be useful for B’Day greetings and forgotten e-mails and would be allowed only five times an year. Ok, I almost believed it, but this year it comes up with an auto-pilot which on enabling composes and replies email on your behalf, it can also chat on your behalf. It also gives some examples. I can’t believe Google guys thought they can get away with it.

Common Google, grow up. We’re not those kids who could be fooled by saying there’s a Lion standing behind. Ok you fooled us once, but how can you ever think you can use the same trick again and again. Try something better next year.

PS: Now We’d be really fooled, if this feature was indeed true

Its time to do something on my blog other than changing the themes around ….So here I come on my blog again. I think I’m more of a free-lancer at heart than a committed blogger, I dont want to write when I dont feel like, and I dont want to feel bad about it either. Through time and again I have found one truth about me if nothing else – I get obsessed easily with something as easily as I get bored with it later, But one thing which falls as an exception is blogging, may be that’s because this is where I can let my heart out …. and without bothering about people judging me on my thoughts.

Shantaram is a book I completed in recent times. I’m not going to give an illustrous review of it as a book and would rather direct here, the people who are looking for it. But one thing I will do, is share why I identify myself with the book. I’m not an australian, neither am I a criminal or have lived in slums, but one thing I find in common with it are the imperfections.

I know I’m far from perfect. I’m not someone whom you can take as inspiration for most of the things, but I realize it and I have survived despite it, and survived pretty well. It also scares me to see people who are perfect, in almost every sense. It makes me want to ask them the question – if they see the world as it is, or do they see it through their own frosted glass where everything looks beautiful. How can one not feel small infront of them. Shantaram made me realize that one needn’t be perfect to be a good person. Shantaram also describes the India, which I’m sure most of the people reading this blog haven’t experienced – the slums of Mumbai. Before reading the book, I used to picture slum life with poverty, sadness, hunger and people willing to run away from it given a chance. But they seem to be content with the little they have – the huts, the open toilets, TV sets and a sense of community which I bet nothing else but suffering can bring. The book also made me realize how absurd comparisons can be, how we have no right to compare our life to someone else’s and form an opinion based on that. But again, its not a perfect world – so we do compare and we do form opinions which later becomes our point of view. And it’s always better to have some point of view – good or bad than having none. On the whole Shantaram has been quite a read, a tale of imperfections and otherwise which one can identify more with , than those other preaching inspirational books.

I’m back from my trip to India after two years, the trip was great. I spent my New years at Goa and it was amazing. This trip also gave me a chance to take off from work and think about something other than work and weekends.

This trip also helped me get a perspective if nothing else. The most important thing, I realized in this trip is that no matter we change countries or girl friends, accents or attitudes, there’s something intrinsic that will always tie us to what we are and that will never change, that with which we identify ourselves and people relate to us, that which keeps us, us.

And the part that scared me about myself was, I was trying to change that.

My heart aches for Solace
Solace or Silence my mind wonders

My body longs for Love
Love or Lust my mind wonders

My mind wanders for ideas
If its procrastination  my mind wonders

Damn Mind!

Thought on a workless day at work.

Browsing through the aisle of Dreams
I wonder what Dream to pick up to dream tonight

Those good dreams that give a world of unreal Happiness
and a second of real dissapointment

or

Those nightmares with a hell lot of unreal hell
and a second of real relief

Thought on a Fall evening, Tempe town lake

NewYork is like a mistress.
You dont wanna live with her, but you can’t wait to see her.

Thought in a subway NewYork City.

This post serves a dual purpose. First, It does the post that Manpreet had tagged me with, a long time ago, and second it reviews the book, not in an exhaustive way though.

Tag: Take up the book closest at hand, open page 123 and write the lines six, seven and eight.

Normally I keep the book I’m currently reading closest to me, at my bedside. It is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I completed this 1000 page book last night, and the book came even closer to me. This is the feeling you get after reading a great book I guess. Anyway I quote the sixth, seventh and eight lines in the page 123.

Then on holy days, when people come from all over the country to hear the services in the cathedral, we gather farthings galore.

The Pillars of the Earth

Review: The story of this book is woven around building a cathedral. It starts with the wish of a mason dreaming to build the most beautiful cathedral in England. Its about him and how he struggles to make his dream come true. Its about how Love defies Logic and how ordinary people with their strong will could wage wars on the strongest of kingdoms. Its about hatred between two step brothers and how lust can overpower someone. Its about never learning to loose, and how a single woman can start and stop great stories. All in all, Ken Follett has done a wonderful job and never in those 1000 pages, do you want to give up reading the book. No wonder it was featured in BBC’s Top 200 Nation’s Best-loved Books and Oprah’s Book club. Great Read!

Freedom

If I were to be asked about the most important thing in my Life, no doubt I would say Freedom. Freedom which sometimes we take so much for granted that we realize its value only when we loose it.

Happy Indian Independence!